How to setup a workstation computer with Debian Wheezy and XFCE4

Debian is an ideal solution for servers. Stability is
the main advantage of Debian. At the same time the stable Debian version
doesn't contain the most recent packages. So, Debian is not one of first
choices for someone who
wants to use Linux for Desktop. Probably he/she will choose
Ubuntu or Linux Mint
or Fedora.

I use Archlinux on my desktop PC. Even if Archlinux is
not suitable for the novice Linux user, it is rock solid, it contains
cutting edge
software and you can find any package you want in its repositories (official
or AUR).

But,
recently, I setup my old laptop,
Fujitsu Siemens AMILO Notebook Xi 3650 with Debian 7
Wheezy and
XFCE4. I was
surprised with the final result! Not a super cool and fancy
desktop, but a nice
environment with great support for sound, Flash, Nvidia and any kind of
networking "out of the box".

Why Xfce? Xfce is a lightweight desktop environment, fast, simple and user
friendly. Personally, I am not a fan of latest versions of Gnome, KDE or
Ubuntu Unity.

Of course, it's a matter of choice, but I don't like graphical wizards and I
can not stand unstable systems. I want to have to control of what I install
on
my computer
and how.

Some little hacks

Default Debian 7 installation comes with XFCE 4.8 and LibreOffice 3.5 As
latest XFCE 4.10 is much more better than the previous version (the same
with LibreOffice), I use some
hacks to setup these
versions on Debian stable. It is not required, but it worths the try. This
is possible by using repositories of Testing
version (Debian Jessie). More information is available
here and
here.

Remarks

In the following tutorial, I present all steps I followed, but some of them
are
not required for a common desktop PC. So, I marked them as "optional". I use
nano text editor, but you can use vi or other
graphical editor e.g. geany. I also use systemd, so
to restart apache (for example), I use systemd restart
apache2.service instead
of the equivalent service apache2 restart on systems with initscripts.

Next steps

Hopefully, at this time a base Linux system with XFCE graphical interface and
Nvidia support is
up and running! During next steps, I will setup a graphical network manager,
an HP printer and scanner
and desktop applications for every day use. Additionally I will setup PHP
development tools and my Github projects. Of course, the last step is
optional.

NetworkManager

During boot, my computer reports MISSING (non free firmware). Its
the about wifi. Fortunately it is available on Debian repos:

If you use OpenVPN and you want to manage VPN connections using Network
Manager, install:

apt-get install network-manager-openvpn-gnome

(click
the
thumb for full image)

SEE ALSO the screenshot at the end of this post (WIFI detection).

Fonts

Install Microsoft fonts

apt-get install ttf-mscorefonts-installer

I use terminus font in Terminal:

apt-get install xfonts-terminus

keepassx password manager

KeePassX is an
application for people with
extremly high demands on secure
personal data management. It has a light interface, is cross platform
and
published under the terms of the GNU General Public License.

System tools

GSmartControl is a graphical user interface for
smartctl (from
smartmontools package), which is a tool for querying and controlling
SMART (Self-Monitoring, Analysis, and Reporting Technology) data on
modern hard disk and solid-state drives. It allows you to inspect the
drive's SMART data to determine its health, as well as run various tests
on it.

apt-get install smartmontools
apt-get install gsmartcontrol

Virtualbox

VirtualBox is a powerful x86 and AMD64/Intel64
virtualization product for enterprise as well as home use.

apt-get install virtualbox

Java

Most JAVA applications require the Oracle JAVA SDK or JRE, so I prefer to
download manual the preferred version (as .tar.gz) from

PDF viewer

Evince is a document viewer for multiple document
formats. The goal of evince is to replace the multiple document viewers
that exist on the GNOME Desktop with a single simple application.

Evince is specifically designed to support the file following formats:
PDF, Postscript, djvu, tiff, dvi, XPS, SyncTex support with gedit,
comics books (cbr,cbz,cb7 and cbt).

apt-get install evince

Screenshot tool

Shutter is a feature-rich screenshot program for
Linux based operating systems such as Ubuntu. You can take a screenshot
of a specific area, window, your whole screen, or even of a website –
apply different effects to it, draw on it to highlight points, and then
upload to an image hosting site, all within one window. Shutter is free,
open-source, and licensed under GPL v3.

apt-get install shutter

Photo editing

GIMP is the GNU Image Manipulation Program. It is
a freely distributed piece of software for such tasks as photo
retouching, image composition and image authoring. It works on many
operating systems, in many languages.

apt-get install gimp

Media player

VLC media player is a free and open source
cross-platform multimedia
player and framework that plays most multimedia files as well as DVDs,
Audio CDs, VCDs, and various streaming protocols.

apt-get install vlc

Printer and Scanner

An HP printer,
HP Officejet 4500 will be installed. A static IP
(192.168.1.71) has been assigned to this printer.

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